The Fort Worth Press - Frustrated Biden enters second year looking to fight

USD -
AED 3.673042
AFN 68.112673
ALL 94.198378
AMD 389.366092
ANG 1.801814
AOA 913.000367
ARS 1003.850089
AUD 1.538462
AWG 1.8025
AZN 1.70397
BAM 1.877057
BBD 2.018523
BDT 119.468305
BGN 1.877115
BHD 0.376794
BIF 2953.116752
BMD 1
BND 1.347473
BOB 6.908201
BRL 5.801041
BSD 0.99976
BTN 84.384759
BWP 13.658045
BYN 3.27175
BYR 19600
BZD 2.015164
CAD 1.39805
CDF 2871.000362
CHF 0.893615
CLF 0.035758
CLP 977.925332
CNY 7.243041
CNH 7.25914
COP 4389.749988
CRC 509.237487
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 105.825615
CZK 24.326204
DJF 178.031575
DKK 7.158304
DOP 60.252411
DZD 134.27504
EGP 49.650175
ERN 15
ETB 122.388982
EUR 0.95985
FJD 2.27595
FKP 0.789317
GBP 0.798085
GEL 2.740391
GGP 0.789317
GHS 15.795384
GIP 0.789317
GMD 71.000355
GNF 8617.496041
GTQ 7.717261
GYD 209.15591
HKD 7.78445
HNL 25.264168
HRK 7.133259
HTG 131.234704
HUF 395.000354
IDR 15943.55
ILS 3.70204
IMP 0.789317
INR 84.43625
IQD 1309.659773
IRR 42075.000352
ISK 139.680386
JEP 0.789317
JMD 159.268679
JOD 0.709104
JPY 154.770385
KES 129.468784
KGS 86.503799
KHR 4025.145161
KMF 472.503794
KPW 899.999621
KRW 1404.510383
KWD 0.30785
KYD 0.833149
KZT 499.179423
LAK 21959.786938
LBP 89526.368828
LKR 290.973655
LRD 180.450118
LSL 18.040693
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.882192
MAD 10.057392
MDL 18.23504
MGA 4666.25078
MKD 59.052738
MMK 3247.960992
MNT 3397.999946
MOP 8.015644
MRU 39.77926
MUR 46.850378
MVR 15.460378
MWK 1733.576467
MXN 20.428504
MYR 4.468039
MZN 63.910377
NAD 18.040693
NGN 1696.703725
NIO 36.786794
NOK 11.072604
NPR 135.016076
NZD 1.714237
OMR 0.385039
PAB 0.99976
PEN 3.790969
PGK 4.025145
PHP 58.939038
PKR 277.626662
PLN 4.16352
PYG 7804.59715
QAR 3.646048
RON 4.778204
RSD 112.339038
RUB 104.308748
RWF 1364.748788
SAR 3.754429
SBD 8.383555
SCR 13.693555
SDG 601.503676
SEK 11.036204
SGD 1.346604
SHP 0.789317
SLE 22.730371
SLL 20969.504736
SOS 571.332598
SRD 35.494038
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.748021
SYP 2512.529858
SZL 18.034455
THB 34.480369
TJS 10.647152
TMT 3.5
TND 3.17616
TOP 2.342104
TRY 34.552504
TTD 6.790153
TWD 32.583504
TZS 2659.340659
UAH 41.35995
UGX 3694.035222
UYU 42.516436
UZS 12825.951341
VES 46.55914
VND 25419
VUV 118.722009
WST 2.791591
XAF 629.547483
XAG 0.031938
XAU 0.000369
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.760497
XOF 629.547483
XPF 114.458467
YER 249.925037
ZAR 18.15566
ZMK 9001.203587
ZMW 27.617448
ZWL 321.999592
  • RIO

    -0.2200

    62.35

    -0.35%

  • NGG

    1.0296

    63.11

    +1.63%

  • SCS

    0.2300

    13.27

    +1.73%

  • GSK

    0.2600

    33.96

    +0.77%

  • BCC

    3.4200

    143.78

    +2.38%

  • BTI

    0.4000

    37.38

    +1.07%

  • RBGPF

    59.2400

    59.24

    +100%

  • BCE

    0.0900

    26.77

    +0.34%

  • JRI

    -0.0200

    13.21

    -0.15%

  • CMSD

    0.0150

    24.46

    +0.06%

  • CMSC

    0.0320

    24.672

    +0.13%

  • RELX

    0.9900

    46.75

    +2.12%

  • VOD

    0.1323

    8.73

    +1.52%

  • AZN

    1.3700

    65.63

    +2.09%

  • BP

    0.2000

    29.72

    +0.67%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0100

    6.79

    -0.15%

Frustrated Biden enters second year looking to fight
Frustrated Biden enters second year looking to fight

Frustrated Biden enters second year looking to fight

Joe Biden 1.0 was a calming, grandfatherly figure, a low-key veteran coming out of retirement in 2020 to heal a nation deeply divided by Donald Trump. A year later, meet Biden 2.0 -- the frustrated, angry fighter.

Text size:

"I'm tired of being quiet," he said last week in a blistering speech.

Biden was referring specifically to his many fruitless "quiet conversations" behind the scenes with senators in a doomed effort to get his signature legislation on voting rights passed. He could just as well have been summing up the exasperation of his first 12 months in the Oval Office.

And if 2021 saw mild Biden, 2022 looks set to feature a louder, more pugnacious version -- a president running out of time, patience and allies to save what remain of his ambitions.

Biden took office January 20, 2021 -- at 78, the oldest man to ever become US president -- facing incredible challenges.

Covid-19 was out of control, Trump's supporters had just two weeks earlier tried overturning the presidential election, the economy was comatose, and around the world US allies were reeling in Trump shock of their own.

Biden's answer to all that -- not to mention to the explosive tensions over racism after a series of Black Americans were killed during botched arrests -- was to promise competency, old-fashioned decency and unity.

"My whole soul is in this. Bringing America together, uniting our people," Biden pledged in his inaugural address.

And he even seemed to have a chance of pulling it off.

Democrats narrowly controlled both houses of Congress, Trump had been banished from Twitter, and Covid vaccines were ready.

"There were high expectations that Biden, given his experience and his knowledge of Washington, would be able... to make the trains run on time again," said Lara Brown, director of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.

"It was all about a return to normalcy."

- 'Hubris' -

Fast forward to the start of Biden's second year.

Beset by the Delta and Omicron Covid variants, an ever-more divided America, and the likely loss of Congress to the Republicans in November's midterm elections, Biden's luck at the age of 79 seems to have run short.

With a majority of just one in the Senate and barely more than that in the House, his huge social spending plan -- called Build Back Better -- is dead in the water. Ditto the voting rights package he says is needed to save US democracy from Trump's supporters.

A centrist at heart, Biden has failed to connect with the right or satisfy his own party's left. As he's discovering, the center today is hard to find.

Average approval polls on fivethirtyeight.com are at a lowly 42 percent, down from 53. A recent Quinnipiac poll, while an outlier, posted a disturbing 33 percent approval.

Abroad, the picture is similar.

While world allies do like having a United States not governed by Trump back, the country's humiliating military exit from Afghanistan torpedoed the Biden administration's aura of professionalism. Certainly Russia seems unconcerned, as it masses troops on Ukraine's border.

It all adds up to a bitter awakening from the days when the White House buzzed with idealism and talk of Biden emulating his hero Franklin Roosevelt, who led America through the Great Depression in the 1930s.

"Their optimism, combined with the public expectation that all of this would be solved, led them down a path of hubris," Brown said.

- 'Less shouting' or 'fight'? -

There's still a scenario where Biden comes out on top: the pandemic burns out, the economy stabilizes, inflation recedes, and with the subsequent feel-good factor Biden gets his party to reverse those legislative defeats just in time for the midterms.

Biden's aides also point out they got Congress to pass the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, juicing a Covid-ravaged economy and preventing more widespread misery. Remarkably, Democrats also got strong Republican support in passing a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package.

All that with a razor-thin majority in Congress.

The more likely outcome for 2022, though, is continued Democratic infighting, followed by Republicans winning one or both chambers of Congress in November.

At that point, Biden can expect aggressive House investigations, and even possibly impeachment, as Republicans seek to further undermine their opponents' ability to govern.

And it would become increasingly likely a 2024 White House challenge could come from Trump, even as the former president continues to try to subvert the 2020 election.

So much for Biden's vow to restore "the soul of America."

David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist at the heart of the mainstream establishment, advises Biden to pivot back to "less shouting and more of Biden's trademark common sense."

But Biden, his back against the wall, is signaling that he sees things more darkly going into 2022.

"I did not seek this fight," he said in another dramatic speech this month, this time commemorating the anniversary of the January 6 storming of Congress by Trump supporters.

"But I will not shrink from it either," Biden said. "I will stand in this breach."

L.Holland--TFWP